Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Rogue's Gallery: Sky Captain Patrick Wade

Tis been a while since I last did a Rogue's Gallery entry and so figured it was high time that I made a new entry.

With a recent entry about Skyships this character seemed the perfect choice for this week's post. One that could be a key ally, ruthless rival or fearsome foe depending on the players' actions in your game of Frozen Skies.

So I present to you, Alyeska's self-styled premier pirate hunter....

Sky Captain Patrick Wade

There is one name that sky pirates and other outlaws of the wild blue yonder curse more than most; Sky Captain Wade.

Wade was once an Aerial Corps officer, though he was effectively a privateer as he commanded an airship commerce raider during the Great Darmonican War. He was highly prolific as the commander of the B-class Skyship FrigateBrazen, including a daring night-time sneak attack on an enemy convoy which he credited to 'exceptional cloud conditions'. After the War he retried from the Service, though in the span of a handful of months he'd grown restless and petitioned the Aerial Corps to be instated as a freelancer.

Given his war record, the request was quickly granted.

However the military wasn't about to hand over a Skyship to anyone, war hero or not, and so Wade was given the Prydwen-class rigid airship Excalibur. The Excalibur was an old war veteran, having seen service on long-range maritime patrols and was equipped with a hanger to house a small squadron of aircraft. Though she received a refit devised by Wade himself, chiefly to improve her defences and converting her to use Lift Gas in her gasbags in order to give her a greater carrying capacity so she could be fitted with a degree of armour for extra protection. The airship's hanger was expanded and improve, including having a new aircraft handling system fitted so that two aircraft could be launched at the same time.

Within a year he'd established himself as a pirate hunter and a fair number of sky pirates who tangled with him ended up in twisted metal coffins in the icy tundra. Wade used his experience as a commerce raider to good use, having once been a de facto pirate he knew the tactics that his new foes were likely to use. He has since become the bane of Alyeska's sky pirates and if he ever steps foot in Broken Spires he is likely to be greeted with a hail of lead despite that pirate haven traditionally being neutral territory far as sky pirates are concerned.

Thanks to the sky pirates notoriously being a disorganized rabble most of the time, Wade has yet to meet a serious challenge and so some say that he is more confident than he should be. His overconfident is further inflated by his successful war career, though more often than not his stubborn streak saw him take on more than he could chew but somehow luck saw him through...but not without a few scars.